Adrian Heath was born on 23 June 1920 at Maymyo, Burma. He attended Bryanston School in Dorset. In 1938, he became a private pupil of the naturalist painter Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn. In 1939 he entered the Slade, but his studies there were curtailed by the outbreak of the Second World War. He enlisted in the RAF in 1940, was captured in 1942 by the Germans and held prisoner of war at Stalag 383 at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. There, he met and inspired Terry Frost to paint. After the war, he returned to complete his studies at the Slade under Randolph Schwabe and entered the orbit of Coldstream, Gowing and Pasmore. Heath showed Impressionist-inspired landscapes, portaits and still-lifes in his first exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Carcassone in 1948. In 1953 he had his first one-man show at the Redfern Gallery, London, as well as at other London galleries, in the provinces and abroad. Whilst in Carcassonne, Heath discovered a small book on the French Cubist painter and printmaker Jacques Villon (1875-1963) studied it, and slowly, his art changed direction. The first work he completed after returning to England was his Paddington Station, a carefully observed piece, executed in the manner of the Euston Road School. The works executed after that demonstrate the influence of Pasmore, who encouraged Heath’s development. Kenneth Martin’s journey from Euston Road to pure abstract art would also be instructive. Heath exhibited with the London Group from 1949, when he showed his first abstract works. In 1949 and 1951, Heath visited St Ives in Cornwall, where he met Ben Nicholson. Heath became the main link between the St Ives School and the London-based ‘Constructionists’ (Mary and Kenneth Martin, Victor Pasmore and Anthony Hill). Heath’s influences included D’Arcy Thompson, Hambridge and Ghyka. In the early 1950s he arranged exhibitions in his studio at 22 Fitzroy Street for abstract artists. The third exhibition included William Scott, Roger Hilton and Frost. In 1951 Heath began to explore abstraction using a method called ‘harmonious proportion’. The method involved starting with a harmonious rectangle and rotating cut out areas of thin card to arrive at a harmonious composition. The Tate in London has his White Collage (1954), which indicates use of this method. Heath’s essay Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning was published in 1953. In 1954 Heath was included in critic Lawrence Alloway’s ground-breaking publication Nine Abstract Artists which celebrated the advancement of abstract painting in works by Heath and his associates. Heath was later included in the well-documented exhibition ‘This is Tomorrow’ at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. (Some indication of Heath’s importance to the abstract movement may be taken from the fact that the preliminary meeting for the exhibition took place in his studio). Heath produced abstract and semi-abstract pictures in oils and acrylic paints. He was also a collagist and constructivist. He exhibited in France, Scandinavia and Germany, as well as in Britain. Heath moved to Charlotte Street in the late 1950s. He had a print workshop in the basement and regular visitors in the 1970s included Eduardo Paolozzi, Anthony Gross, Victor Pasmore, Michael Ayrton and David Hockney, who had his etchings proofed there. Heath was Chairman of the Artists International Association (1954-64) and established his reputation as a teacher at the Bath Academy of Art at Corsham (1955-76). In the years 1964-67, he was a panel member of the Arts Council. He was artist in residence at the University of Sussex in 1969 and a Senior Fellow at the Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education (1977–80). He taught at the University of Reading (1980-85). He spent much time addressing meetings and sitting on committees, all the while attempting to expand the framework of modern art. He has therefore, been seen by some critics as more of an activist than an artist. In later years, his painting moved from abstraction to semi-abstraction and developed a style which retained memories of nature and combined the abstract with the experience of the motif. Heath died in France in 1992 at the age of 72. His work is to be found in numerous collections including the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, the V&A, the University of Newcastle Hatton Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum in New York and the Hirschhorn Museum at Washington DC.